Category Archives: Jibe

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If you’re looking for a powerful system that allows you to easily change in-world surface images/textures, make live modifications and add customized web-links within your Unity-based Jibe multiuser virtual world, then you might be interested in a new product from ReactionGrid.

Watch the above video for a complete walkthrough. Here are some screenshots from it.

Everything looks better with Wiener Dogs.

This beautiful 3d store model is made up of many high quality 2d surface images/textures, and I could modify any of them with ACES.

Use the in-world menu system to change surface textures and weblinks.

I just changed the junk food aisle into one containing healthy fruit using ACES!

What is ACES?

ACES is a system that adds user­-modifiable display boards to a Jibe world. Any image on the web can be projected onto any display board, and boards can be configured to open any URL in a new browser window.

The content in an ACES display board can be changed in-situ (within the live published Jibe world) with no work required in the Unity editor.

All ACES display boards can be changed in­world by any user who has logged in with an account that has administrative level access.

ACES display boards can also be configured so that any user can “claim” an unused board as their own and then have full admin control over it.

ACES display boards don’t have to look like boards! Imagine changing the image textures of storefronts, buildings, any surface at all in your Jibe world.

The 1st International Conference on e-Learning, e-Education and Online Training is being held September 18-20 in Bethesda, Maryland. This conference will assess a wide range of progressive ideas for the future of e-Learning, focusing on the idea of technology as a means to education rather than an end in itself. The conference organizers have lined up a wonderful range of interdisciplinary speakers and are planning to attract a wide group of heterogeneous scholars and practitioners.

“Augmented Mind: The Evolution of Learning Tools
from Language to Immersive Reality”

Innovative educators are constantly facing the challenge of matching pedagogical goals with complementary technological tools. Unfortunately, given the wide range of technologies and devices that vie for consumer attention, the right choices are not always clear and are typically obscured by media hype. In this presentation, John Lester will describe how focusing on the way the human mind interacts with the world and other human beings can help identify the right tools for the right jobs. From a mind-augmentation perspective combining constructivist and behaviorist approaches, John will explore web based tools ideal for knowledge management, augmented reality based self-animated autonomous agents, and finally the unique (and sometimes over-hyped) affordances of perceptually immersive multiuser 3d virtual worlds for collaborative learning.

My goal will be to tell an interesting story with examples and demos of technologies that I think really leverage how our minds naturally embrace the world around us. One such technology that I’m currently exploring and that you’ve probably never heard of are Wiglets.

Wiglets are autonomous, evolving, self-animated and self-motivatedagents that can exist in both completely virtual and augmented reality environments. They exist at a wildly creative intersection of artificial life, art and gaming. And perhaps best of all, you can interact with them directly through touch and gestures.

Another topic of discussion will be the affordances of multiuser 3d virtual worlds, especially how one can reduce the barrier to entry for people interested in leveraging them for educational purposes. ReactionGrid has recently developed some new tools that integrate with the Unity3d-based Jibe platform to provide on-the-fly content editing in a simple yet powerful way. I’ll be giving a sneak preview during my presentation.

Want to easily change this web-based 3d environment on the fly without having to muck around in Unity? Now you can. I’ve got some new tricks with Jibe to show you.

In Jibe 2.0 we’ve included an easy system that gives you the power to use iTween to create multiuser networked events. This allows you create shared experiences between avatars using interactive and complex object animations.

Here’s a short tutorial video that will show you how to create avatar sit locations on any object in your Jibe world. It’s a very powerful and flexible system where you simply drag and drop sit locations onto anything in your multiuser Jibe world, allowing you to easily create collaborative meeting environments that encourage avatars to gather together in groups.

In this video, I also review how to avoid the accidental misuse of a script that could potentially cause your Avatar to fall through the floor. Safety First!

If you have an Oculus Rift and would like to brainstorm with me on how it can be integrated with multiuser virtual world applications, please drop me an email (john.e.lester@gmail.com) or post in the comments.

Note: You’ll need the Unity Pro editor if you want to work with Movie Textures in Unity3d.

Unity3d allows you to embed and play videos on any surface in a 3d environment.

This means you can easily create a web-based Jibe world where avatars explore a multiuser 3d virtual space while watching videos or movies playing on screens/signs/any surface you wish.

The most common way to add video to a Unity3d project is by adding a video file to your project’s Asset Folder, which automatically creates a Movie Texture (details here).

However, adding a video file directly to your project means the size of the video file will be added to the final size of your completed Unity webplayer file. In other words, if your video clip is 50 Megabytes large, then your Unity webplayer file will have an extra 50 Megabytes added on to it.

For folks creating Jibe worlds with Unity3d (or anyone creating Unity webplayer files for streaming on the Web) this is not good. You always want your webplayer file to be as small as possible so your webplayer file will finish downloading and start running as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, there’s a way you can download/stream a movie from the Web so it doesn’t add to the size of your Unity webplayer file. Unity will immediately start playing the movie as soon as it has buffered enough of it, similar to how YouTube works.

Here’s a simple example:

Step 1: Get your video ready as an OGG file on the Web

If you have a video on YouTube that you want to use, you’ll have to download it. I suggest using Flash Video Downloader.

Unity needs videos to be in OGG format (file extension .ogg). If you need to convert an existing video file into OGG format, I suggest using VLC (it’s free and cross platform). Take your OGG video, put it on a webserver somewhere and remember the URL.

Important Note: If you’re managing your own webserver, be sure it has the MIME type for Ogg Vorbis enabled. For Extension use .ogg, and for MIME type use application/ogg.

Step 2: Create a Cube

In this example, we’re going to make a basic cube and have the video play on its surface. Of course you could flatten the cube so it looks likes a screen and then place it on a model of a TV or something. I’m just being lazy.

Step 3: Create a new Javascript

I like the name of a script to remind me what the script actually does, so I’m going to call this new script ClicktoPlayWebMovie.

Here’s the code. Copy and paste this into your new script and save it.

You can see at the top of the script that I’ve included my demo URL as the default movie URL. You can always change it later.

Step 4: Add ClicktoPlayWebMovie script to your cube

Drag the ClicktoPlayWebMovie script from your Project folder onto the Cube in your Scene view. This will add the script to the cube.

Now select your Cube in the Scene view and look at the Inspector settings. You can change the movie URL by simply editing the URL field in the Inspector.

Also notice that there is an Audio Source added to the Cube. This was added automatically when you added the script to the Cube, since the script needs an Audio Source component to work. Don’t delete or modify the Audio Source component. Just leave it be.

Step 5: You’re done. Test it out!

You can run your Jibe world locally in the Unity editor and test it out that way. Walk up to the cube and click on it. The movie will start playing on all surfaces of the cube.

The Unity Asset Server is a fantastic tool for version control and collaborating with a group of people on a project in Unity3D. Our customers at ReactionGrid Inc. primarily use Windows servers, and some of them are running their own Unity Asset Servers to facilitate working together on Jibe projects.

I recently learned of a bug that might affect folks running their own Unity Asset Server on Windows. Fortunately it’s not serious at all (just annoying as heck), and the fix is incredibly easy and permanent.

Are you running the Unity Asset Server on a Windows machine?

Has it suddenly stopped working, refusing to start no matter what you do?

Do you immediately see the following popup error when using the Unity Asset Server Control Panel?